4. French resources in the Caribbean

1) the archives of the Secretariats of State and the Ministries responsible for the French colonies from the 17thCentury to the 20th Century;

2) the archives transferred from the former colonies and Algeria when independence took place between 1954 and 1962, apart from the management archives which remained in the countries concerned.

All fields of colonial history are represented from the exploration of territories and the creation and administration of the colonies, the economic relations with Metropolitan France and the training of colonial administrators to the monitoring of political and liberation movements, wars and independences. Over 38 km of dossiers, 150,000 photographs, 60,000 maps and plans and a library of 120,000 books, periodicals and press titles.

Martinique has a considerable written heritage that is still largely unknown: the Martinique Archives. Collections from public authorities and government departments, family documents and business records are the source of the island’s history, essential for researchers and necessary for the building of a shared collective memory. Safeguarding the archives and making them available to as many people as possible are therefore the major considerations for a cultural policy in Martinique. This is why the Martinique Archives is contributing to and playing a key role in the Martinique Heritage Database.

This association brings together scholars in Francophone, Anglophone, Lusophone, Italophone and Arabophoneliteratures of / on Africa, as well as diasporic literatures, with a special emphasis on the Caribbean and the MascareneIslands.

BNPM are the initials of the Banque Numérique du Patrimoine Martiniquais, or Martinique Heritage Database. This database was set up by the General Council of Martinique. It is a portal giving access to documents on the cultural and historical heritage of Martinique, backed up by the Martinique geographical information system (SIGMA). It offers numerous search possibilities thanks to its user-friendly navigation and search engine based on the principle of interoperability between databases.

Caribbean Studies is a multidisciplinary academic journal published since 1961 by the Institute of Caribbean Studies, College of Social Sciences at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus. The journal publishes original works on the Social Sciences and the Humanities in English, Spanish or French languages. It is divided into four parts: articles, research notes, book reviews (including review essays of multiple books and individual reviews), and news and events. Published by: Institute of Caribbean Studies.

Small Axefocuses on the renewal of practices of intellectual criticism. It recognizes a tradition of social, political, and cultural criticism in and about regional/diasporic Caribbean and honours that tradition but also critiquing it because it is through such argument that a tradition renews itself. Published by: Duke University Press